The Ministry of Justice worships the god of diversity and the goddess of representation. Underlying the selection of those thought capable of being able to judge their fellow man (in this terminology man embraces woman, transwoman, transman and all varieties in between) is the supposed need that local communities, however they might be defined for a magistracy which is geographically and legally no longer local, need locally based unpaid volunteer lay magistrates. The same MOJ employs full time judges sitting in the supreme court down to district judges sitting full or part time in the magistrates and county courts. These highly paid civil servants are not considered by any criteria apart from their abilities to do the job in question. There were 13,000 county court trials in January to March 2022. The complete current analysis of the workload at those courts for those interested is available here. My main point, however, is not the numbers but the people; those who sit alone high on a bench changing the lives of many. They are not nor need to be "diverse" or representative of the populations within the courts` jurisdiction. Which brings me to the organisation which purports to be the representative of lay magistrates. Latest head count is that there 12,506 magistrates but the number of those holding membership of the M.A. is secret. I am not an accountant but within the 36 page annual report of to the Charity Commission are these few details re membership:- "Income for 2021-22 was £589,337 and for 2020 -21 £619,239. " The individual membership annual charge is £47 so simple arithmetic would appear to tell us that there are 12,539 magistrates but what those figures omit is that that income includes the annual £39.50 paid by retired magistrates who wish to stay involved. Since it can be estimated that at least 20% of magistrates do not join the M.A. the regular clarion calls from its recently appointed new chief executive about this or that policy being "magistrates consider etc etc etc" are exaggerated to say the least.
The latest outburst concerns out of court disposals. We have been there before. In 2015 the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee published a paper available here which if one scrolls down indicates that the then chairman of the M.A. was somewhat critical of the situation which of course is now generally speaking supposed to be in operation. But M.A. criticism in that report is not a one off. Its underlying motivation is to secure as much work in the magistrates courts as possible. Its long standing ambition for the lower courts` limit on custodial sentencing powers to be doubled to 12 months custody has become reality in the last year with the perfect storm of a Covid pandemic reducing capacity so causing hitherto unheard of delays in all courts combined with this government`s increasing recklessness in reducing budget imbalances. Crown courts are much more costly to run than magistrates courts thus taking more serious cases from the former to the latter makes financial sense but the debate whether or not justice is being truly served is for another time.
The immediate question is how the rate of out of court disposals is not to the liking of the M.A. Out of court disposals are a means by which a law enforcement agency such as the police can swiftly and efficiently deal with less serious offending without commencing a criminal prosecution. In order for an out of court disposal to be valid the offence must be eligible and the offender must accept his/her guilt.There are currently a variety of different out of court disposals of which three are not recorded on the Police National Computer. These are: community resolutions, drugs warnings (for cannabis and khat), and penalty notices for disorder. Under the proposed new Act only community resolutions will remain in place.
Almost every Justice Secretary from the year dot has indicated that knife offenders will face custody. It`s almost a mantra observed more in the absence than in the reality. "Out-of-court disposals 'expanding uncontrollably', magistrates warn" is the headline of an article in today`s Law Society Gazette. There are indeed valid questions to be asked about knife offender policy today as there have been for over a decade but my raison d`etre today is the lack of true informed opinion of magistrates owing to their having no mouthpiece other than the M.A. an organisation which should be asking itself why for a small tax deductible sum it has not achieved mass membership. Its attempts to keep the actual numbers of active member secret is itself a statement which throws a shadow over all its endeavours. Government, i.e. the MOJ if it wanted to know what magistrates really think should undertake its own survey. Perhaps that action has been considered and rejected because the answers from the devil it knows might be infinitely preferable to those from one that it doesn`t know. Indeed validation of opinion is not necessarily a priority for this government or any other for that matter.
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